Category: Water
When the revolution in Rojava began, the groundwater level was very low due mainly to industrial monoculture agriculture organised by the Syrian regime over the last four decades, as well as a decline in rainfall as a result of the global climate crisis.
In 2015, Turkey started to use water as a weapon against Rojava by holding back the water on the rivers which flow from Turkey to Syria through the dams it has been building over the last twenty years.
Then, in October 2019, Turkish state forces invaded some areas of North-East Syria, including the region of Serekaniye, which supplies water to almost half a million people in the region around Hasakah. The Alouk water station in Serekaniye was targeted on the first day of the invasion. Since then it has been fixed and then put out of service again repeatedly.
Since the start of the invasion of Serekaniye, Turkish military forces and their allies have continued to attack water infrastructure, burned newly planted orchards and dammed the rivers providing most of the fresh water and electricity to Syria. Hundreds of thousands of people are currently without safe reliable drinking water, a situation only exacerbated by the Covid-19 pandemic.
In the articles below, you can find more information about issues surrounding water and the struggles for water autonomy in North and East Syria. There are also articles here with information on issues around water in southeastern Turkey, such as Turkish megaproject the Ilisu Dam, whose waters have now submerged the ancient city of Hasankeyf, drowning thousands of years of largely unexcavated human history and displacing an estimated 100,000 people, while giving Turkey unprecedented control over waters of the wider region.
Female farmers of Deir ez-Zor strengthen their bond with soil by organizing
Female farmers of Deir ez-Zor keep working in agriculture despite the cut of the water supply of the Euphrates River by Turkey. They have dug water wells to water crops in order to not be forcibly displaced. Despite the difficult working conditions, the women of Deir ez-Zor are going to organize under the umbrella of the Farmers' Union.
Four Years After its Liberation, Raqqa is Setting an Example for Post-War Syria
When Raqqa was liberated four years ago, the city was largely in ruins. The streets were covered in rubble, its citizens were largely displaced, and tens of thousands of mines and IEDs that were left by ISIS littered the city, posing a huge risk to the safety of both security forces and civilians. The education system of the city had been utilized by ISIS to brainwash the people, including children. Services were nonexistent after months of warfare. The status of women in the city had been abysmal under ISIS rule. Raqqa’s society had to be rebuilt from the ground up.
North Syria: Impact of water shortages caused by Turkey discussed in international forum
Delegates at an international forum in Hasekê have held discussions on the critical water shortage in the region caused mainly by Turkey's diversion of the water flow from the Euphrates in violation of a protocol dated 1987.
Recommendations of the International Water Forum in Hesekê
The International Water Forum in North and East Syria has concluded with a series of recommendations from the 300 delegates from inside and outside the country. The Turkish state is to be sued for using water as a weapon of war.
Sirîn Water Union carries out successful drinking water project
With the support of the Drinking Water General Administration, Sirîn Water Union met the drinking water needs of Sirîn district and its villages by pumping water from the Euphrates River.
The Euphrates Crisis in Syria
For months, Turkey has violated its 1987 agreement with Syria over shares of the Euphrates River's water, causing suffering and shortages of food, water, and electricity among the farmers, fishermen, and other residents of the river's banks.
Turkey’s reduction of the Euphrates water slams into cotton harvest
The invading Turkish state’s reduction of the Euphrates River’s water, rising temperatures and increasing cost of fertilizer have adversely affected cotton production in North and East Syria.
Euphrates Water Reaches Syria’s Hasakah
The water of the Euphrates River has actually reached the reservoirs of the water station of al-Aziziyah after nine-month work on the project of bringing the Euphrates water to Hasakah, Salwa Saleh, co-chair of the General Directorate of Drinking Water in Hasakah, northeast Syria, said on Tuesday. “The 130-km pipes and the lifting stations, which
Baxoz Water Station being repaired
The Public Services Committee is working to minimise the problems caused by the reduction of the Euphrates river carried out by Turkey. To this end, the Baxoz water station is currently being repaired.
The Attempt to Dry Up a Revolution
The Turkish state uses water as a weapon against the population in North and East Syria.
Solar power the alternative to supply electricity in Syria’s Hasakah countryside
Recently, the countryside of Hasakah, northeast Syria, has seen an increasing demand on installing solar panels amid continuous power outage.
